contentedsouls

10km, 1 lock, 2 hours

We awoke Friday morning to more showers than sun. I had a plan (which ignored the rain) and thought that we would cycle into Digoin and stock up with veg, meat and cheese at the little market before having some (long overdue) lunch out; after all, 2 birthdays and a wedding anniversary had been ignored in the interests of finishing the titivation of MR.

G also had a plan which, unfortunately, didn’t co-incide with mine. He didn’t want to leave the boat unattended on pins and also needed to cycle out of town to buy a new sledgehammer as the handle on ours had snapped the night before whilst banging in the aforementioned pins. Somewhere about here my brain stopped functioning (and the grumps took over) because we only needed to move 1/2 km further on and tie off on the stakes that we knew were there; but it didn’t occur to either of us. G went off for the sledgehammer and beer whilst I walked the dogs. I set off on my bike when he returned, but the bike was more of a hindrance than a help – I had to walk it across the aqueduct as the water rushing below me made dizzy and then, when I got to town, I couldn’t get it up the steps from the tow path so I had to go passed and come back again. By this time it was 11.45 leaving me 15 minutes before the market and shops closed. In the interim I had also discovered that I’d left the camera memory card back on board (hence, no photos). The lady on the market stall was downright unfriendly; she was wet and cold (like me) and clearly wanted to go home – they’d no mushrooms, no carrots, no parsnips and no violet garlic. I asked if she had any root ginger – gingembre frais, a pronunciation I’ve had no problems with in the past – and she started playing the, ‘your French is crap and I don’t understand a bloody word you say,’ game and she called her boss over who knew immediately what I wanted. It’s a veg stall – how many things does she sell that sound even vaguely like gingembre and they didn’t have any anyway. By now my grumps had reached the stage of inconsolable and I wheeled my bike most of the way back again with hardly any of the things I needed.

It is a Grand Prix weekend so, if we’d moved up onto the stakes, I could have had a lovely potter around the shops on Saturday morning (closer so no bike required) and there was also a lovely nature reserve down by the Loire to walk Muttley on Sunday but, as I said earlier, my brain had stop functioning. Weirdly, G suggested we moved on and we uhmmed and ahhed and then tossed a coin and left at 1pm – I still have no idea why we even considered it!

When we’d left the Roanne et Digoin Canal, the lockie said we needed to ring to book passage, but the book said that there was free passage, so we didn’t know if we would be able to get through the two locks between us and our new destination; the lake at Pierrefitte-sur-Loire. Not long after we’d pulled pins, we had a hire boat catch us up which increased our chances as they were small enough to fit in behind us and had probably booked. My good humour returned and we were blessed with intermittent sunshine and some lovely views over the Loire valley whilst the dogs hogged the rear seats (where I’m meant to be sitting sipping cocktails in a flowery dress and floppy hat).

Shortly after leaving the first of the two locks we spotted a nice little mooring in the village of Coulanges; it was animal safe and a quick look at the book showed that there was a bakery, shop, bar, restaurant and a path down to the Loire valley. We asked the hire boat guys to tell the lockie of our change of plans and pulled over for the weekend.

Setting off with Muttley to explore it quickly became apparent that I couldn’t reach the track down to the Loire – the only access being via a busy road with no pavement – and that the locals had given up commerce in favour of gardening.

The restaurant is now a private residence and my presence with a camera clearly peed off the lady of the house who shouted angry words at me out of her window. Had my French been up to it my grumps had returned sufficiently to have hurled a few back – but it wasn’t, so I didn’t. Note to self: must learn some abusive French.

The gardens of the other closed premises were equally well tended

On Saturday morning the only option to entertain Muttley and I (whilst Grand Prix qualifying was happening) was an up and back along the towpath, which we both hate, so I decided to add some interest by taking him out for a bike ride – he didn’t have a bike though. He wasn’t that impressed with the cycling business (a bit like me really) and we abandoned the bike when we found a rather nice track and decided to follow it.

These were the first lambs I’ve seen here; you don’t see sheep very often and we’ve only ever seen one pig – pork is very popular (unlike lamb) but the poor sausages (sorry!) are kept in sheds. I suspect that it may have been quite a long while since anyone lived in this house.

This lovely old building used to be the mill house but is, rather strangely, situated a good 400 metres from the present course of the river which disappears under the canal before re-joining the Loire.

It will come as no surprise to you that we moved on again this morning.